BenRiach whisky – Speyside

BenRiach Distillery Information

In the heart of the Speyside, between the village of Rothes and the town of Elgin, we find the BenRiach (Gaelic for “speckled mountain”) distillery in the Spey Valley. Founded in 1898 by John Duff (who also owned the nearby Longmorn distillery), and part of the Grant family, it was built in the midst of the whisky boom of the late nineteenth century. The distillery was finished a few months prior to the famous Pattison Brothers bankruptcy scandal which crippled the whisky industry and led to the closure of a great amount of distilleries, some of which had barely just started themselves. Due to the crisis, Duff came into financial trouble, and was forced to sell the distillery shortly after it was completed. It was then bought by Longmorn Distillery Co Ltd, who chose to close BenRiach in 1900; the distillery having been operational for just over 2 years.

The BenRiach distillery

New owners

It remained closed until 1965, although its malting floors were operational to supply the Longmorn distillery. During the 1960s and 1970s, a new whisky boom led to the creation of several new distilleries, and thus Benriach was rebuilt and reopened by Glenlivet Distillers Ltd. In 1972, BenRiach started distilling peated whisky, which initially was intended to be used in blends (particularly Chivas). In 1978, Glenlivet Distillers Ltd was bought by Canadian firm Seagrams Company Ltd. The new owners expanded BenRiach in 1985, doubling the amount of stills from two to four. In 1994, BenRiach is released as a Single Malt for the first time.

Then, in 2001, Pernod Ricard snags up Seagrams. They decided to use BenRiach in rotational production, meaning distillation only happens for about 3 months per year. A year later, Pernod Ricard closes the distillery altogether. Luckily, in April 2004, an independent consortium took over, resuming bottling in August 2004, and distillation in September 2004. The malting floors were discontinued somewhere in the past, but have been well-maintained, and there’s talk of them reopening again somewhere in the near future.

The BenRiach Stillhouse

The current owners, BenRiach Distillery Company Ltd., consists of Billy Walker, a former director of Burn Stewart, and South Africans Geoff Bell and Wayne Kieswetter. Their resurrection of BenRiach (which formerly was known as Benriach. The new owners added the capitalised R) has proven to be so successful that in 2008, they also acquired the Glendronach distillery, and in 2013, the Glenglassaugh distillery.

Benriach whisky

The Benriach Flagship range consists of the following:

Heart of the Speyside

12 Years Old

16 Years Old

20 Years Old

There are complimented with the Peated BenRiach range:

Brine Moss

Curiositas

Septendecim; 17 Years Old, matured in ex-Bourbon casks

Authenticus 21 Years Old; 800 bottles yearly. The 21 Years Old has been discontinued and replaced with the 25 Years Old

Authenticus 25 Years Old

Super Premium Limited Release

When Infra Trading took over the distillery, they also took ownership of the casks sitting in the warehouses. Some of those casks have been bottled as Super Premium Limited Releases: